We urge Utah Lt. Gov. Greg Bell to reconsider his office's stance against allowing electronic signatures for the Utah ethics reform and fair boundaries initiatives. Bell, acting on the advice of Attorney Gen. Mark Shurtleff, plans to refuse the counting of online signatures.
In our opinion, that's a mistake. The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act allows online transactions. Many of us pay our bills electronically and buy many products through the Web. We don't see a realistic reason to deny an electronic petition signature. In fact, Bell himself has said he would like to see the Utah Legislature pass legislation requiring that electronic signatures be accepted in these circumstances.
The Utahns for Ethical Government group and Fair Boundaries group are in the process of collecting signatures for reform initiative proposals that could be voted on in November if the required number of signatures are gathered.
Despite polls that show wide support for the efforts, there's no guarantee either group will meet the tough requirements by Thursday's deadline. Organizers need 95,000 signatures, and that's the "easy" part. Organizers must also get 10 percent of voters' signatures from 26 of 29 Utah counties.
It may be through a combination of paper and online signatures that the requirements are met. If that occurs and those signatures are refused, there will certainly be a resulting court challenge from the initiatives' sponsors. It's possible we could still be months from knowing if there will be initiative votes in November.
This is a unique opportunity for Utah residents to send a clear message to lawmakers that we are fed up with long-delayed ethics reforms and are taking matters into our own hands. It will be a shame if that effort is defeated, either by getting too few signatures or having names gathered electronically struck down by the lieutenant governor.
Comments